I am a newbie and am starting to try the green circles...love this sport.

I am snowboarding a mountain this weekend that has airbag sessions. Is this something a newbie can try or do I need to know how to jump? I mean you just cruise down and land in a big air bag, right? It looks wild and I want to try it!!

If you are just now learning to ride green runs I would recommend not hitting the airbag. While it seriously minimizes risk of injury, it does not completely negate it. If you do not know how to ride or jump, stay focused on getting your basics down first. You could land head first and tweak something, or worse yet miss the entire bag.

My first attempt on an airbag was after i was confident on 5-10 foot table tops, and even then i was completely caught off guard by the amount of speed required, and the amount of upwards kick that the kicker had. Took off well in the backseat and actually continued around to become an unintentional backflip. Braced for the landing upside down and ended up tweaking my neck and shoulder (not badly mind you, but enough to shock me at how rough it can be even with an airbag).

Went back for about 5 more attempts though, eventually getting the hang of it, but the falls were definitely not like landing in a cloud of air

If you're just starting it's a bad idea. It seems safe but you have to be able to get and hold enough speed to get fully on the bag. Close to 30mph. The one I've been on has a 14ft tall ramp. Barely making off of the ramp and falling directly in front of the bag can happen.

The resort will more than likely have the air-bag again next season and this can be your motivation to continue to progress.

I agree with the other comments. If you have some friends riding it, you can be the valuable friend that captures them in video and they buy your rounds

I have done a big jump prefer med-small jumps and my back isn't the best. Last year at our family outing my kids did this and it took every once of will to not buy myself a pass to ride it.
All I wanted to do was practice my 3's but landing corked, twisted, possibly upside down would have been very bad for me.

Get your basics down and next year you will have a blast hitting the air-bag